Right Throught It
by Fickleberry Fine
Summary: Waking the Dead short story, set after Series Eight. AU... Thankfully. Stella/Eve.


_'Right Through It'_

_'Waking the Dead' short story, set after Series Eight, Episode Two_

I

The woman was opening her mouth, and presumably sound was coming out of it. The hands were gesticulating, the tight curls in her hair were shaking slightly. The eyes – Eve had registered the eyes if not the speech – were flittering nervously as per usual. She didn't feel welcome here: in Eve's lab. That hadn't been deliberate of course, but these things happen.

Eve sat deeper in her chair as Kat prattled on, closing her eyes for a fraction of a second. She couldn't help another memory emerging, the time she had been sat in her chair, all alone in the lab... It had been late (or possibly even early, Eve seemed to remember it being after midnight); an all-nighter on the brink of solving a case. She had been sitting there, right there, hitting the refresh button on her computer every five seconds, willing for some result of some test to come through, when Stella had walked in.

Eve remembered the look in Stella's eyes – the mischievous glimmer behind their natural warmth and fire so far removed from Kat's dark and beady ones.

She remembered how Stella had flipped the switch to lock the doors, though in truth there had been little need to. Eve had learnt later how Grace, tired of Boyd's Boydness, had gone elsewhere to pour over psychopathology reports, and how Boyd and Spence had charged off to haul a suspect in for questioning.

Having locked the doors, Stella had walked over to Eve, not saying a word – not needing to – and silently straddled her, kissing her, running her fingers through Eve's hair. Stella's skirt had ridden up around her thighs, and Eve's hand had so gladly, so desperately, so instinctively moved between Stella's legs. Their kissing had heightened, Eve's fingers running over the soft skin so near Stella's centre when...

"You know I'm on..." Stella had grinned, halting the kissing.

"Then why are you here?" Eve had begged in return, as Stella had casually gotten up off her lap, straightened her skirt and smoothed her hair.

"To tease you..."

The memory stopped, as suddenly as it had taken over, and Eve's eyes flashed open.

"Are... you ok?" Kat asked, her relentless freight train of speech coming to a halt.

Eve cleared her throat, embarrassed. The memory, so vivid and potent, had kidnapped her mind for mere seconds, but had done so with the forcefulness and intensity of the strongest of dreams.

She suddenly realised that Kat wanted – or at the very least expected – an answer.

"Oh, yeah. Just... got a headache." Eve looked away, her glance raking over her desk in the hope something focusing would catch and hold her attention, bring her back down. "Is that everything?" she asked, looking up when there was nothing of such a nature in close proximity.

"Just a note from Boyd."

Eve took the folded slip of paper from Kat's outstretched fingers, fighting back the many memories of how Stella used to hand her things, how their fingers used to linger... that was a memory she'd had to restrain a few times before.

"I have no idea what it means!" laughed Kat in an attempt at small talk to cover the silence she mistook for awkwardness – the silence Eve had been treating as a welcome respite.

"You read it?" she stated casually – with a carefully placed question mark at the end.

Kat's face fell, and she paled. "Was I not meant to?"

"That depends on what it says..." murmured Eve, unfolding it with her thumb. Boyd's scrawled words: _Stella rang me. Go home, bring back news and gifts tomorrow. _"I wasn't going to tell him..." she mumbled, to herself.

"What?"

Eve remembered suddenly that Kat was still there. Damn. "Nothing. What's the time?"

"Just gone eight..."

"I'm going. Tell Boyd I got his message." Eve stood up, tossing her mobile into her bag and pulling on her jacket. It was like a switch had been flipped, she had suddenly realised...

"But you were in the middle of..." Kat trailed off, helplessly indicating the open case files and strewn notes that had Eve had been using to complete her 'cased closed' report.

Eve didn't bother answering, and walked straight out.


End file.
